


The Pine Tree Hat

by congressmanmabel



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dipper loves his family and friends, Episode: s01e01 Tourist Trapped, Episode: s02e20 Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls, Family Fluff, Friendship, One Shot, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 02:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11048952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/congressmanmabel/pseuds/congressmanmabel
Summary: Before Dipper leaves Gravity Falls with his sister, he takes a moment to reflect on his blue hat, the first gift he received from Grunkle Stan, and the memories that made this hat so important to him.





	The Pine Tree Hat

**Author's Note:**

> This fic idea belongs to @snapback-gravity-falls

_June 1, 2012_

Dipper was exhausted from fighting a colony of gnomes alongside Mabel. Now that he was inside the Mystery Shack, he wanted nothing more than to collapse on the couch and watch some TV with his twin.

As the pair through the gift shop, they passed by their Grunkle Stan who was greedily counting the day’s profits. The old codger took one glance at the kids before grimacing.

“Yeesh. You two get hit by a bus or something? Ahah!”

Dipper and Mabel were not in the mood to hear their gruff relative taunts as they ignored him and continued on their way. They almost exited the store until they heard their Grunkle call for them.

“Uh, hey! W-wouldn’t you know it? Um, I accidentally overstocked some inventory, so, uh… how’s about each of you take one item from the gift shop? On the house, y'know?”

The twins turned around and faced their Grunkle. Mabel was on board with accepting free merchandise from her normally stingy relative. “Really?” She asked with a beaming smile.

Dipper seemed suspicious of Stan’s sudden act of kindness and remained unconvinced. “What’s the catch?” He questioned with folded arms.

Stan’s features hardened back into his usual grumpiness. “The catch is do it before I change my mind, now take something.”

Dipper and Mabel looked around the gift shop in search of an item to call their own. While Mabel skipped towards the treasure chest filled with knick-knacks, Dipper approached a shelf filled with blue pine tree hats. The preteen needed a hat to further hide the Big Dipper birthmark on his forehead. When he was a small boy, some of his peers back in Piedmont teased him for his unusual mark. When he started to wear a hat as a way to shield his birthmark, he did not receive any more taunts about it. Without a hat to his name, the last thing he wanted was for the locals to gawk at the red constellation that he was born with. Dipper looked at the row of hats and decided to ameliorate his current predicament once and for all.

He picked up a blue pine tree hat from the shelf, placed it on his head and looked in the conveniently placed mirror. Tipping up the brim of his new hat, Dipper was satisfied to see the brand new cap perfectly covering his crown.

“Hmm. That oughta do the trick!”

* * *

 

_August 31, 2012_

Dipper walked into the empty gift shop to have one last look around before they were to leave. The stillness of the small shop was an eerie feeling, as it was normally packed with tourists dumb enough to believe in the existence of Stan’s cheap creature displays and splurge on merchandise made by the man of mystery himself. Despite his time as an indentured servant, Dipper could not help but smile as he looked around the gift shop. It was the meeting place where he befriended Soos and Wendy, two people he deeply cared about.

The now thirteen-year-old walked by the shelf of hats and approached the same mirror he looked at from when he received his first gift of kindness from his gruff Grunkle.

He looked at his reflection, noting the blue Pine Tree hat had been weathered from all of the adventures he experienced over the summer. This hat had been with him during their unusal experiences in Gravity Falls; encountering the Gobblewonker, fighting sentient wax figures, video game characters, and Gideon, winning the time wish for Soos at Globnar, and discovering the once-hidden mysteries surrounding Gravity Falls.

But there were life-threatening perils he had experienced as well. Dipper lost his hat when he was stopping the alien ship from abducting his Grunkle Ford (only to miraculously find it during Weirdmageddon of all times). He also remembered the monstrous Bill Cipher and his nasally taunts, addressing him as Pine Tree. The teen remembered how Bill also called his sister Shooting Star, even using the symbol from her sweater as the symbol on her prison bubble.

Dipper looked back at his reflection. He and his family defeated that damn triangle. Bill was dead and gone for all he cared. Despite the demon’s intimidating nature, Dipper refused to let that demon ruin his most precious item, and he’ll make certain that Mabel can still enjoy wearing her favorite sweater too. He won’t allow that beast to ruin everything he held dear.

_My family…_ He began to muse.

Dipper looked back at his reflection as he reminisced over the more simpler times with his blue hat. How Stan and Ford lovingly ruffled his head as displays of affection. They even lifted up the bill of his hat to cheer him up from his rut; Stan helping Dipper get over the CD fiasco and Ford speaking words of encouragement after their failed attempts at protecting their minds from Bill. The Pine Tree hat Stan initially gave him was only the first of many bonding moments he shared with his family.

Looking into the mirror one last time, he fixed the blue pine tree hat on his head. Dipper had worn many hats for as long as he can remember, from his black and red dinosaur hat to the olive-green star hat he lost earlier in the summer. But no hat could ever compare to the blue Pine Tree hat that he wore throughout his eventful summer vacation he spent with his loved ones.

* * *

 

Dipper, Mabel and the rest of his newfound family waited for the bus that would whisk him and his sister away from this magical town and return them to the provincial Californian suburb from whence they hailed.

The teen laughed alongside his friends when he noticed Wendy kneeling beside him.

The redhead gave him a tearful smile. “Hey, you mean a lot to me, man.” She folded her hand to give Dipper one last fist-bump of the summer.

Dipper gazed at Wendy in shock at her words. Wendy Corduroy was arguably his closest friend outside Mabel. He remembered all of the good times they shared together, from pulling pranks on unsuspecting victims to binge-watching cheaply-made movies that aired on the public access channel. She also was with him during their more dangerous adventures, such as fighting off the shapeshifter in the underground bunker, discovering the Society of the Blind Eye, and surviving the literal apocalypse together. Although he had some difficulties with his then unrequited crush on her and his dramatic confession of his infatuation with her, the teen had let him down gently and still wanted to be his friend. Through his interactions with Wendy, he learned that he could be someone worthy of loving.

Dipper gave his friend a fond smile as he gave her a hearty fist-bump “You, too.”

Wendy suddenly swiped Dipper’s blue hat from his head. The newly-dubbed teen was shocked by her action and was quick to take his beloved cap back. As he reached for his hat, he felt something soft being placed by a friendly hand.

Opening his eyes, he felt Wendy’s trapper hat on his head. Dipper looked back at his friend and realized what she had done.

Wendy propped the worn cap on her head. “Something to remember me by.” She told him with endearment.

Dipper smiled at Wendy. He may not keep his treasured Pine Tree hat, but he was more than happy to switch hats as a way for each of them to reminisce the life-altering summer they shared as friends. His blue hat was now in good hands.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Hey @snapback-gravity-falls, This was a fun piece to write and I hope I did justice to your original idea.


End file.
